When an agricultural harvesting or conditioning machine is moved through a field having crops which are to be harvested or conditioned, said machine is usually moved along one side of the field to cut and harvest an initial swath, and then continue around the field successively cutting farther and farther into the crop material, one swath at a time, the machine having a sickle bar of predetermined width according to the width of the swath to be cut, whereby the outer end of said sickle bar moves through the crop material. Particularly when the crop material is very heavy or matted together to any appreciable extent, it is preferable to provide some sort of dividing mechanism, especially on the outer end of the machine adjacent the outer end of the sickle bar to at least partially form a parting path or line through the crop material and thereby, facilitate an orderly cutting of each swath of the material. Frequently, it also is desirable to provide the end of the machine adjacent the inboard end of the sickle bar with a crop divider, particularly to guide one edge of the swath of material in an orderly manner into the header of the machine with which the sickle bar is associated and thereby insure not only the cutting of the material, but prevent any of the same from being caught or snarled in any part of the machine.
Agricultural machines of the type to which the present invention pertains also usually have mounted thereon adjacent the forward end, above the sickle bar, and vertically spaced therefrom, a knockdown bar, which is anywhere from two or three feet above the ground, and said bar serves to engage and bend the oncoming material in a manner to facilitate the same being engaged by the sickle bar and moved rearwardly therefrom into other consolidating or conditioning means to which the cut material is directed. Such knockdown bar provides a very convenient support means for crop dividing devices and the present invention utilizes such bar for purposes of supporting the improved crop divider members comprising the subject matter of the present invention.
Various types of crop dividers have been used on harvesting equipment heretofore to various degrees of success or difficulties. One typical example of crop divider which has been developed previously comprises the subject matter of U.S. Pat. No. 3,599,411 to Scarnato et al, dated Aug. 17, 1971, but the crop divider illustrated in said patent has only limited utility in contrast to the divider mechanism comprising the subject matter of the present invention, details of the latter being set forth hereinafter.
Furthermore, crop harvesting machines of the type having a reel which partially consolidates cut crop because the cutting width of the header is greater than the width of the conditioning unit, need a structure at both sides to keep tall crops from being "whip-lashed" around the sides of the header. Also, harvesters having large cutting widths have been provided with transport mechanisms so that the harvester is transported with the header substantially longitudinal to the direction of travel when in the transport position (e.g. the direction of travel during transport is at right angles to the direction of travel during the harvesting operation relative to the frame of the harvester). For such machines, prior art crop dividers would greatly increase the overall transport width.